


There's Always Exile

by Laurasauras



Series: Rise With The Moon [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon-Typical Ambivalence To Stabbings, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Continued from A Mood of Pessimism, Fatalism and Menace, the Midnight Crew are getting the hell out of dodge.
Relationships: Diamonds Droog/Spades Slick
Series: Rise With The Moon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560988
Comments: 12
Kudos: 46





	There's Always Exile

It’s like this, Slick says, and all three of you look up from your cards and give him your attention. I told the old lady to go fuck herself, but as Droog points out that ain’t exactly an infrequent occurrence. She’s not the kinda broad who assumes disobedience. 

Deuce says he’d disobey her, with a grin. Boxcars answers that he’d _obey_ her. They look at you. You shrug. She ain’t your type to obey or disobey. You follow Slick. Slick tries not to smile. What a sap. You look at your cards. 

We ain’t doing anything to her, that’s the point, Slick says. We’re playing this cool. Deuce wonders if that’s in Slick’s wheelhouse. Slick wonders if there’s any part of Deuce’s body he hasn’t stabbed yet. You reach out and put your hand on the back of his chair, casual like, not even looking up, but you feel him ease back down so that his shoulders can touch your forearm. 

What’s the job, though, Boxcars wants to know. We’re not doing the job, Slick says. What are we doing instead Boxcars asks.

There’s always exile, Deuce sings. That’s what you said, you tell him. It’s a good song. 

Slick says, problem is, the crew’s valuable. Aw, boss, Boxcars says. Slick advises him to can it. 

_Problem is_ , you say, throwing your shitty cards onto the table where they can’t offend you anymore, the old lady doesn’t like losing what she sees as hers, and it ain’t occurred to her that the crew ain’t for owning. 

Your boys consider that. Boxcars is looking suspiciously at you and Slick. You stare him down. He’s guessed, of course. Boxcars has an instinct for that shit, watches too many soaps, it’s infected his brain. You don’t take your hand away from the back of Slick’s chair. You’ve been in the business of calming the boss for years, it’d be more suspicious if you stopped now. 

Deuce asks Slick if he’s got a plan. Slick grins. He doesn’t smile that often, he’s got the kinda smile that prompts folk to advise him not to worry about smiling in the pictures if you know what you mean, but when he grins like this there’s trouble. 

There’s this prisoner, Slick says.

*

Look, you’re not one to let your gaze wander. Not that what you and Slick have or have ever had has been any flavour of, well, _reality_ , if you’re going to be blunt with yourself, but you’ve never much cared for anyone that wasn’t him. You don’t know that you much care for him, neither, but this is where you are. 

Also where you are is in the prisoner’s lounge room. He’s been gracious enough to call for whisky for the crew. 

Slick wants to know how it is that he can do such a thing as that, as that doesn’t seem very prisonery. Nor does the fuckin’ penthouse setup he’s got going on here, now he thinks on it. You advise Slick not to worry about it. You took care of the arrangements.

‘Mr Droog has been very kind to me,’ Mr Crocker says. 

Most humans talk like they got razors in their mouths and they wanna stick them in your aural slits. Mr Crocker’s got a very soft voice, one that doesn’t offend. If someone were to accuse you of liking it, you might not disagree with them immediately.

Mr Droog, Slick remarks. He wasn’t aware you had been granted a human honorific. Did Deuce know that Droog had been granted a human honorific Slick wonders. Did Boxcars?

You tell him you have no way of knowing what Deuce and Boxcars know before either of them can speak for themselves. You remind Slick that this was his idea. He doesn’t look happy. But he never looks happy. He also doesn’t look like he’s inclined to speak right now.

Deuce takes over before you have to. He tells Mr Crocker that there’s a lot going on on Derse right now, but here isn’t any kind of place to talk about it. He compliments Mr Crocker’s hat, but you don’t think that has anything to do with anything; you’re just a gang with a healthy appreciation for a stylish hat. He asks Mr Crocker if he wouldn’t mind coming with the crew on a little excursion. 

‘Where to?’ Mr Crocker asks. 

Deuce reiterates that here isn’t any kind of place to talk about anything. A prison cell! Nope! That’s just not the place for a conversation!

You all look around the rooms. They’re extremely comfortably furnished. You saw to that. You just couldn’t stomach throwing a man of Mr Crocker’s class in the actual slammer. He’s obviously too valuable for that. Intel, and so on. 

‘I defer to your judgement, gentlemen,’ Mr Crocker says. He smiles at you, like you’re someone worth smiling at. You’re not under any delusions that your smile is any better than Slick’s, and it’s not any better practiced either, so you nod at him instead. 

You get moving, Deuce scouting ahead, Slick with his claws pressing into Mr Crocker’s suit jacket near his elbow, and Boxcars taking up the rear. You’ll go where you’re needed, and right now you’re keeping an eye on the asses in front of you. The suits. The men. You’re making sure that Slick doesn’t stab Crocker, that’s what you’re doing.

Hearts sidles up to you with all the grace of a camel on skates and leans his head down as if he may have vaguely read the word “covert” once in passing but he didn’t have a dictionary on him at the time, but it sounds roughly like “conspicuous”, so this is close enough, right? You give him a sardonic look. It’s much more practiced than your smile.

He wants to know what you’re doing. You want to know what his face is doing so close to your face and to let him know that you ain’t into vore. He asks you what about Slick. You ask him if he’s seen your new stickball cue, it’s _real_ pretty and you’re willing to give him a damn close look at it. 

He asks you more urgently what about Slick and you decide that if this buffoon don’t stop flapping his gams then what about Slick is going to be hello Slick we weren’t talking about you, so you take a leaf out of your boss’s book and stab Boxcars in the gut. 

Ow, Boxcars says. 

Yeah, you tell him. Ow sounds like a reasonable response. You tell him you wouldn’t hate it if all his responses to all things were limited to ow. He could make a thing like that work. It’d go with his hat.

Deuce shoves you out of the way and starts tending to Boxcar’s wound. Slick is looking at you, but he doesn’t look concerned. Stabbings are part of the territory. For all he knows, it was a tubeday stab. Not that it’s Boxcar’s tubeday. You think. You should probably know what day is Boxcar’s tubeday, but you feel like Deuce definitely would and Slick has a memory for shit like that so someone would’a told you. 

You catch up with Slick and Mr Crocker. Mr Crocker smiles at you again. Your throat closes over a bit but you keep your cool.

_Mr_ Droog is my right-hand man, Slick tells Mr Crocker. He looks up at you, glares slightly, and looks back at Mr Crocker. Slick asks Mr Crocker if he understands. He says that no matter what human honorifics you get, you’re his.

Boss, you protest. Nah, Slick interrupts. He hasn’t finished, he tells you. He’s having a chat here with his new human friend. He asks Mr Crocker if he thinks he’s human friends with him yet. 

‘I would be delighted to call you a friend, Mr Slick,’ Mr Crocker says. 

Slick stabs him. 

‘Oh dear,’ Mr Crocker says, and he stops walking to look at the blood spreading from a point just below his ribs. ‘Mr Slick, I appear to have been stabbed by your knife.’

You ask Mr Crocker if he wouldn’t mind shutting the fuck up as you’re still in the castle. You ask Slick if he can keep his knife in it’s holster for two fucking seconds and yeah, you’re talking about his cock, there’s no need to fucking measure shit right now.

‘I don’t mean to cause issues,’ Mr Crocker says, his voice lower than before. ‘I admire Mr Droog, but I’m certainly not romantically or … occupationally involved with him.’

You let Mr Crocker know that he should focus on keeping pressure on his wound. Slick snarls at you. You turn away entirely from Mr Crocker and grab onto the neck of Slick’s shirt with both hands and pull him close to you. When you have him on his toes, you take a hand away and brush your thumb roughly over his cheek plate. 

You tell him you’re willing to make a scene if he doesn’t calm the fuck down. He glares at you. You stroke him again, gentler this time. You don’t want to be gentle with him, he’s being an idiot, you oughta punch him in his face, but you can’t help yourself. 

You’ve done this before, the boss is an idiot and it’s the only thing that works in a pinch. It’s different now you know what he looks like when you’ve got him bent over his desk. Your vascular pump is working overtime and you can’t look away from his eyes.

Boys, Boxcars says. We gotta get a move on.

You ease Slick down so he’s not on his toes, but you can’t move more than that. 

Boys, Boxcars repeats, more urgently. 

Slick bares his teeth at you, just a bit. You want to lick them. You’re used to burying feelings like this. You’re not used to feeling like it might be worth acting on them. Slick’s eyes dart to your mouth and your pump beats faster again. Might be that’s worthy of concern. Might be you don’t give a shit.

Until Boxcars picks you both up by backs of your collars and turns you bodily around. Fuck’s sake, he mutters. Dancing around each other for years and they wait ‘til the fuckin’ revolution to make their move. With his giant hand in the small of your back, there’s nothing you can do but walk forward. 

‘I have an injury,’ Mr Crocker reminds you all politely.

Deuce assures him that no one has forgotten about his injury.

*

You get out of the castle and into your hideout. Mr Crocker bares the descent down the manhole remarkably well. It’s a tight squeeze with four of you. It’s _intimate_ with five. 

Deuce wants to know what’s next, boss?

Slick’s off his game tonight. There’s no fire underneath him. Or there is, but it’s in the wrong direction. Your direction. 

You need to do something about that. 

You don’t want to do something about that.

The only thing you can think of doing is removing yourself and you only just put yourself in and fucking hell, you used to be very okay with being ignored and now you can’t put up with it for 48 hours so your boss can pull off the most dangerous mission of your career?

We get off this fuckin’ purple moon, you say. The fuck kinda colour is purple, anyway. Not a one of you looks good in purple. You consider for a moment, before saying the Deuce looks the worst in purple. That is true, Deuce allows. Makes you look fat you tell him. He fails to look offended. Not many colours he doesn’t look fat in he says. That’s a side effect of being fat.

_Boys,_ Slick says. He looks better, now, focused on managing the crew rather than just on whatever moments the two of you may or may not have shared. A shiver goes right down your carapace at the ghost of a thought of what you’ve shared with him. Not now.

Transport’s the issue, Slick says. There’s ‘ports, but they’re monitored and they’ll just send you to banana town. Not exactly an improvement, but worth it as a last resort. You assume he’s communicating this for Mr Crocker’s benefit. 

Of course, Slick says, too casual to be anything but hinting, we could always ask the old lady for a lift.

Good one boss, Hearts says. Deuce laughs uncertainly. Poor guy always wears the brunt of laughing at the jokes. _Not_ joking, Slick says. Maybe I ain’t getting away with it, but that ain’t my job. He looks at you.

You need a smoke. You need something in your lungs that isn’t the heat off of too much meat in one hideout. It’s not that you thought it was _love,_ not yet, but …

You ask Slick if you mean that little to him. His hand flexes like a dealer who thought you were gonna hit but you said stay. He tells you that he doesn’t bank on you failing. You grit your teeth.

Fine, you say. Fine. You’ll get you a ship. You’ll ask the old lady for her personal cruiser. What the hell, she’s always liked you. Maybe you’ll get five ships, one for each of you. 

Slick tells you to get your ass up the ladder he needs a word. After him, you insist.

It’s only because you’re the one who parked the car last that it isn’t over the manhole cover. Slick climbs out and then you, and he kicks the cover back in place with a grunt when you’re out, cutting off the sound of Deuce offering the others baked goods. 

What, you snap.

He grabs you by the tie and drags you towards him, jerking you down half a foot until he can grip your cranial plate in his hand and kiss you like you’ve pissed him off nicely. He hisses against your lips, asking you if you think he’d give you up like that. No, you murmur. _Yes,_ your cynical heart insists. 

He lets you go suddenly and you straighten up. Somehow, stopping kissing has left you a couple of feet apart and staring at each other like you’re expecting weapons to come into play. You don’t like that you’re breathing heavy. You don’t end up on the back foot that often. You don’t know how to play this, with both of you off your game. 

He glares at your shoes. He tells you that he’d never send you into a mission he didn’t know you could walk out of, that’s the whole reason you’re in this mess. You know that. Then why are you being such a fucking white-shell about it, he asks.

You look away, towards a neighbouring alleyway. This whole fuckin’ moon is alleyways, there’s always one around when you need a place to look while you contemplate. 

You do get along with the old lady, she ain’t never so much as scowled at you, but that’s largely because your interactions with her have been entirely restricted to the topic of fashion. Even when she gives you a dossier you just toss it behind you on her desk and tell her nah, you can’t talk on missions right now when she’s gone and done her claws all fancy. You got a way with women, they like that the eyes you got for them are incapable of objectifyin’. 

But a queen thinks that is her due, to be fawned over. You don’t know that you have any kind of actual leverage and you got a healthy respect for that trident of hers.

Slick shakes his head. He tells you that you’re ridiculous. That you could have the whole damn palace at your call if you so wished. That you’ve got more class than the rest of the three of them put together and that he don’t like repeating himself, but he _wouldn’t send you into a situation you couldn’t walk out of._

You’d say he was overestimating you if you thought Slick was capable of such a thing. Instead, you nod.

Slick says he ain’t gonna say goodbye and play into your pessimism. You nod again. He tells you he that therefore this ain’t any kind of gesture, it’s just because the sight of your carapace doesn’t make him want to throw up. And then he steps up and tugs on your tie again until you oblige him with a kiss.

It’s the kind of kiss that promises more, the kind you should not be engaging in out in the open. The kind that belongs behind closed doors and might ruin the line of your suit if you let it continue too much longer. 

He pushes you back, arousal written all over his face, and tells you that he isn’t planning on sleeping alone tonight, so you’d better go do your fucking mission in a timely manner. That’s a low blow, boss. He’s lucky you’re a goddamn fool for him.

*

‘Diamonds,’ the old lady purrs when you request entry to her quarters. ‘My fave lil prawn. You best be here to tell me I’m pretty.’

You tell her that if you came and visited every time you were filled with aesthetic appreciation for your glorious queen, you’d never be able to leave her side. She cackles. 

‘You swam over about the fishon I gave Slick, huh,’ she guesses. 

With all due respect, you say, it’s gonna involve some risk. You had a mind that she might assist you in minimising them.

‘Water’d ya have in mind?’

You say in a minute. That’s a new jewel and if she thinks you’re gonna talk business before you catch up with your namesake, she doesn’t know you at all.

An hour later, she offers you her fleet. You insist you only need the one ship, but thank her for her generosity. You light up a cigarette as you walk out the door and finish your third by the time you’re back at the hideout. 

It’s go time, boys.


End file.
